Restoring Sanity Takes Time - Helen Joyce

Gender identity ideology is inherently misogynistic in and of itself, based as it is on regressive sex stereotypes.

You're missing the point. Saying 'woman=adult human female' isn't defining a woman by her sex, it is merely describing which sex she belongs to. Because sometimes, that matters. You can have any type of interests and personality you like and be a woman. Ditto with men.

If you think 'we've gone too far with the with the whole 'lived experience" as a criteria for just about everything', what do you think transness is? It's wholly about an individuals lived experience, there's no evidence to any of it, just subjective feelings. Why should a man's subjective feeling that he is something he can never be, just his own imagined version of what being that would be like, trump provable reality?

OK, he's just annoyingly tedious without any skin in the game, then, How very teenage.

We have as good enough evidence as people opposed to many policies. Polling tends to find that people of both sexes prefer single sex spaces.

We don't have clear evidence as to the proportion of women opposed. But is any policy unpopular with some women inherently misogynistic?

DadJoke: by your interpretation Eddie Izzard can use women's changing rooms on certain days, but is excluded on others. Could you explain precisely what makes it ok for Eddie on some days, but not others?

But they do define us in some ways @ForCoralFox

The purpose of feminism is to bring an end to people being defined by their sex, not to entrench divisions further.

No it isn't. The purpose of feminism is to ensure that women can participate equally in society. Not to deny their common experiences as members of a biological sex class.

Yes, but those categories need not define us.

The statutory guidance was produced by EHRC. A captured organisation until fairly recently and one in which TRA staff mounted an abusive bullying campaign against the Chair as she was perceived as too sympathetic to gender critical feminists.

Single sex spaces rely on exactly the same exceptions being used for all males, including so called "trans women".

What absolute wank.

It is not centering the male person, it is centering the whole person over their biology, which is the opposite of misogyny. The purpose of feminism is to bring an end to people being defined by their sex, not to entrench divisions further.

We've gone to far with the whole 'lived experience" as a criteria for just about everything. It's important, but not the only factor.

When I take my disabled niece swimming I expect the women's changing rooms to be for women. When the Muslim women in my community sign up to the "women and girls only session" at the pool they expect/need that to be single sex. When I look up menopause info on my workplace website I expect clear language related to women's healthcare, not to be described as a "person who experiences menopause" and the studious avoidance of the word "woman" throughout the text.

Just a few years ago, none of the above scenarios existed. So why has this tiny "marginalised" fraction of the population gained such power, and who benefits from it?

You seem to have missed my question upthread, I don't mind asking again.

What is a transwoman?

It is not an actual right under the EA.

It is an actual right under the EqA, and you are working to remove that right, just as trans rights activists suspected. The denial that you have always been about removing transgender rights is laid bare. It would be nice if gender critical people just admitted that.

OK, I'll admit that wasn't put very well.

I shouldn't have mentioned gay people at all, as being gay is clearly defined and is a completely different issue. I thought it might make my point clearer as you were so keen to make a comparison, but it really doesn't work and it was a mistake on my part to mention it.

I've given you my definition, and stated that being gay or being transgender is not a result of fetishism, social contagion, or any of the other degrading and unevidenced nonsense you've projected.

First of all, I have never said, nor suggested that being gay is a result of fetishism or social contagion.

It is however true that transgenderism is sometimes a result of fetishism in the case of males, particularly late transitioning, heterosexual males like Debbie Hayton who has admitted this.

It is also clear that teenage girls often transition as a result of social contagion. You might like to consider for a moment that all the women posting here were once teenage girls ourselves. We have lived experience of either participating in a similar contagion ourselves in our youth or watching our peers be swept along by them. As a male you are a step removed from this, so you are less likely to recognise the signs of a phenomenon like this which affects girls.

If your argument is that it is normal for teenage girls to vastly outnumber teenage boys in being trans identified, shouldn't middle-aged women also vastly outnumber middle-aged men in trans identification? Where are all the late transitioning women who didn't have the opportunity to transition when young?

But having dismissed all my suggestions of what might make someone trans, you still haven't said what you think makes someone think they are the opposite sex, or to desire so strongly to be the opposite sex. What do you think is the cause of someone believing so strongly in something which is untrue or having such a strong desire to be something they are not and can never be?

I would like to know how it's misogynistic to campaign for men to have access to women's facilities? I understand that some women don't like it, but how is it actually misogynistic? FIFY

Isn't it more misogynistic to define women by their reproductive capabilities, as above?

The words 'woman' and 'man' apply to the two fixed, binary and immutable types that humans come in. All humans are either those whose development has centred around the production of small gametes or those whose development has centred around the production of large gametes. That is not defining women by their reproductive capabilities, it is merely describing the category of humans we call women.

Honestly, they're not even trying today.

People are more than just their biological functions. However, the only thing that female people have in common are their biological functions, even when those biological functions don't work.

It is absolutely misogynist to define a female person, either a girl or a woman, using a male experience. The only thing a male person who identifies as a 'woman' is identifying as is that male person's interpretation of a female person's life and lived experience. ie. They only can ever identify as how they imagine a female person lives and feels.

If male people can say they are just the same as any other woman, then that is a misogynistic view. Because that is completely erasing the needs and realities of female people and centring that male person.

I'm a 57 year old woman, mother of an adult daughter

This can mean precisely anything in gender identity ideology.

I'm a 57 year old woman, mother of an adult daughter, and I've never been witness to or heard about this bullying in real life. I guess my experience is the norm - only a tiny, marginalised fraction of the population are trans. We'd hardly know trans women exist outside of discussions ABOUT them in the media. I think I've once knowingly stood in a toilet queue with a trans woman, but that was at a West End show by a trans performer where there were lots of trans women in the audience, so not the norm.

What are your personal, real life experiences of being bullied and oppressed by the existence of trans women?

I would like to know how it's misogynistic to campaign for trans women to have access to women's facilities?

That would be because many women (most actually) don't want to share female only spaces with males. Use your imagination.

I'm glad you're such an expert on my personal lived experience Dadjoke, please explain more things to me!

Excellent. And we are now campaigning to have that clarified and changed.

Because it has been an 'assumed' right that was never a bona fide 'right' in any general sense. And you saying it is a right does not change material reality. It will take time, but it will be sorted out.

I would like to know how it's misogynistic to campaign for trans women to have access to women's facilities? I understand that some women don't like it, but how is it actually misogynistic? Isn't it more misogynistic to define women by their reproductive capabilities, as above? (And not all women can give birth, nor can all men ejaculate.) People are more than just their biological functions.